Observations on economics, the academy, the wider world, and things that run on rails.

3.11.14

TRIES TO RUN, BUT SHE CAN'T GET FAR, IN THE GHETTO.

It has long been a Cold Spring Shops theme that there exist politicians whose continuing tenure depends on desperate voters who keep voting for those politicians, despite the total failure of such politicians to do anything that improves the condition of those voters.

There's a symbiosis between desperate people who like having a ward-heeler "fighting for them" and a ward-heeler who mau-maus the rest of the polity about the continued parlous condition of his or her constituents. A ward-heeler cannot call out the constituents for engaging in self-destructive behavior, nor get re-elected in a district in which constituents discover, or re-discover bourgeois habits. Better to have constituents rendered helpless by years of Democratic policies.

Waters has been a very controversial representative, due in no small part for sometimes saying things that are utterly ridiculous, receiving a “most corrupt” rating from a non-partisan Congressional watchdog group, and being the subject of a very high profile ethics case regarding banking and financial improprieties.

Waters won reelection in 2012 with 71% of the vote, a margin that will likely be repeated next week, as well. Aren’t her constituents lucky…

"Poverty pimp" isn't quite the same thing as "ward heeler", but it makes for good street art.